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Month: October 2018

After constructing miniature living rooms for microbes, a team of researchers from the University of Oregon has concluded that indoor spaces exposed to sunlight likely harbor fewer bacteria than those that are left dark. Their study, published in the journal Microbiome, did not test whether light conditions affect disease-causing species differently from harmless or mutualistic ones and only assessed bacteria that thrive in the relatively dry environment of dust, excluding those found in damp corners and crevices. However, the authors believe that follow-up work on the subject could help inform the design of safer homes, workplaces, and hospitals.

“Our results indicate that dust exposed to daylight contains smaller viable bacterial communities that more strongly resemble outdoor air communities [rather than those derived from human skin, the human gut, or soil] and that the bactericidal effects of ordinary window-filtered sunlight may be similar to those achieved by ultraviolet light wavelengths [for some bacteria types],” the authors wrote.

In order to experiment with real-world indoor bacterial communities, the authors collected dust samples from every room of seven single-family houses in the city of Eugene, Oregon. The samples were blended together, and a thin layer of the resulting mixture was spread onto petri dishes and placed into nine identical, sealable rectangular containers designed to act as mini versions of a typical living room.

The containers each had a window opening covered by one of three materials: glass that let in visible and near-infrared light but blocked most UVA and UVB radiation, like most commercial window glass; glass that blocked most visible and near-infrared but let in UVA and UVB; or an opaque aluminum plate. The internal temperatures were maintained between 18.2 and 22.3°C (64.8 to 72.1°F) and humidity was kept to between 23 and 64 percent, typical of real-world indoor conditions. The sealed microcosms were then put in south-facing building openings with no light obstructions.

After 90 days of light exposure, the number of living bacteria was significantly lower in the visible and UV light microcosms compared to the dark microcosms. The bacterial communities that had been living in either light condition were dominated by groups associated with outdoor air, whereas those in the dark had only about 25 percent outdoor air species. All three community types had low levels of skin-derived bacteria (15 to 25 percent).

The authors note that both the compositions and abundances of bacteria in UV radiation microcosms and visible light microcosms were comparable. As expected, given the diversity of habitats bacteria may thrive in, even though daylight appeared to cause a reduction in a handful of the most abundant household bacteria, a few types of rare bacteria increased during the experiment. Yet the authors assert that this may have occurred because the dominant players in the microbiome were gone, giving the bacterial bench-warmers more access to resources.

This Guy Tweeted About His Experience With A Haunted Ouija Board And It’s Actually Fucking Terrifying

It’s the spookiest time of the year, and while many may be running to the pumpkin patch or pulling out their tarot cards to prepare, you might want to second guess investing in that Ouija board you’ve been eying at the store. While some may scoff and call them children’s toys, it’s no secret to believers that these boards seem to attract a lot of negative energy. And with negative energy comes some pretty terrifying negative experiences.

How do you use a Ouija board? Simple. Just follow these instructions! 1. Don’t.

Don’t believe me? You might want to take a gander at this story from Twitter user Marcus Hitchcock, which addresses a particularly harrowing experience he had when he was young, dumb, and left alone with an antique Ouija board.

i know there’s are a lot of people who are skeptical of demons and spirits. but I would strongly advise you to stay far away from ouija boards. I learned this the hard way as a child https://t.co/wfXRqIBV8G

But before he gets into exactly what happened, it’s important to know the backstory.

so a few weeks ago I tweeted this about my aunt who lived in New Orleans. Even though she was family she was mean as hell and overall a very toxic person to be around. She would beat me and my cousins alot as children and she would always curse at us for no reason. pic.twitter.com/MWq0uCJPSs

my aunt was into some weird shit. she owned an antique shop in New Orleans & she had a living space that was right under it. she would collected skulls and candles and set them up all around her house. My grandma thought she was heavy into witchcraft and didn’t want me over there

one day my aunt had a pretty bad stroke and had to start using a wheel chair. she had a little elevator installed in her house that would take her from downstairs where she lived, upstairs to her shop whenever she needed to go up there.

when they heard Katrina was coming, my family tried to her to come to GA, but she wouldn’t leave the shop. when the storm came, all the power went out, which meant her elevator stopped working. She got stuck under the shop when the water rose and drowned still in her wheelchair.

All caught up? Good. Now we get to the real story — you’ll find out why the details matter soon.

now here’s where the story really begins. my uncle went to N.O. and got all the stuff out of her shop when the waters receded. most of the stuff she had in there got looted but he was still able to collect some of her items she had in the room below.

my uncle bought back most of the stuff in suitcases and in bags to go thru. I was living with my aunt and uncle at the time in South GA at the time and the house they lived in is on a dirt road literally in the middle of plum fucking nowhere (pay attention that’s important) 🚩

Me and my cousin were going thru some of the bags he bought back and we found my aunt ouija board that she used to always yell and curse at us for touching. We never knew what it was we just assumed it was for kids because it has a bunch of letters on it.

My uncle used to leave us home alone alot because he worked at a fire department further into town. So one day he left to work an over night and my cousin thought it would be a good idea to play with this little board he told us not to touch.

so we get to playing with it, and on the bottom of the board there’s little instructions on how to “use it”. It told us how to communicate with spirts and summon certain loved ones who have passed on. We start asking the shit where Tupac and biggie was at.

When the shit wouldn’t let us talk to them, I came up with the AMAZING idea to ASK MY AUNT how to use it. So we asked the board to bring our aunt back to show us how to use the board. Mind you, we got every single light in the house on. I SHIT YOU NOT, the fucking power went out. pic.twitter.com/AKDUE9hFtt

I’m pretty sure I shit myself but I was too scared to check. when the power go out and you in the middle of nowhere it’s PITCH BLACK. I was shook because it wasn’t even fuckin raining. Me and my cousin screaming and shit and for some reason we hide under the bed

We under the bed and all of a sudden shit get real quiet. I had a cell phone that I used but I had left it plugged up in the kitchen. Now this was a pretty big house so I would’ve had to walk like 100 ft in the dark to get it. My cousin was like “go get the phone” pic.twitter.com/Ch1PCbCQb8

As scared as I was, I figured if I ran it wouldn’t be as bad. So I got from up under the bed, and was gettin ready to run my 4.2 forty to the kitchen. Tell me why somebody started knocking……on…..the door. I shit you tf not. I’m finna piss on myself

My cousin said it was the ice maker. I said “how tf it’s gone be the ice maker when the power out?”. The knocking got a little bit louder at this point. Now we BOTH know it ain’t no damn ice maker. Nigga said “go see who it is”. I could’ve fought this man on god

Now at this point whoever the fuck is at this door is banging like DeKalb county police serving a warrant. The banging was super loud and remember, we in the middle of fucking nowhere. I don’t know where I got the balls from but I made my way to the door and said “WHO IS IT”

The banging stopped. I didn’t hear anything. I grab my lil flip phone and turned the flashlight on. My cousin standing behind me with a fuckin swimming pool noodle as a weapon. I was so scared I couldn’t call him a dumbass. We just ran back to the room and slid back under the bed

So we back under the bed. House still pitch black. I’m tryna call my uncle but his phone going straight to voicemail. My cousin tryna get my attention but I’m tellin him to stfu cuz I’m calling and i don’t want whoever at the door to know where we at. He pointing to the window…

The window is right above the TV where we could look up and see out of it. THERE’S SOMEBODY PEEKING THRU THE FUCKING WINDOW. A full face is pressed on the glass and I couldn’t even make out who or what tf it was. At this point my heart beating so fast I think im bouta pass tf out

My cousin is fucking losing. It’s tears and snot all over the floor but I got my hand over his mouth telling him to be quiet. Whoever is at the window is literally scratching it and in the creepiest ducking voice I ever heard said “I…….CAN……SEe……YOu” pic.twitter.com/l2nYEFM9Vo

I grab my cousin by the shirt, pulled him from under the damn bed and darted to the next room over. I didn’t even look in the direction of the window, but all I heard was screaming & banging on it as i ran out. All the windows that were hangin up in the room fell from the banging

We get to the next room, close the door, lock it and jump in the closet with my cousin. My uncle kept an old rifle in there but I didn’t even know how to fuckin use it. I notice it’s a little breeze in this dark ass room. The fucking window…..is……open…..

im so fuckin scared I literally cant even move. I KNOW I gotta close this window but I dont wanna fucking go near it. I can remember it like it was yesterday. But I don’t hear the banging anymore. I thought whoever it was left, but my cousin said “WHAT IF THEY COMIN TO THIS SIDE”

I run over to the window with this rifle I don’t even know how to use, and I figured I would close the window as fast as I could and run back to the closet. I get to the window…Now this is the triggering part…

I’m tryna close this window, but it’s an old house so it take a good amount of strength to close it. My uncle has this big plantation field right in front of the house. I look out the window and I SWEAR TO GOD I saw somebody standing out on the edge of the field

My cousin still in the closet was finally able to find the flash light and he tossed it to me. I shine the light in the field and before I get a chance to really see who tf this is they start RUNNING TOWARD THE HOUSE. THIS WINDOW STILL NOT CLOSING

I PICK UP THE FUCKING SHOTGUN AND JUST START PULLING THE TRIGGER. IT’S NOT FUCKING FIRING. THIS PERSON IS LIKE 10 FEET AWAY FROM THE WINDOW AND WONT STOP. My dumbass throw the rifle out the window at whoever it is, run out the room, close the door and run to the living room.

Me and my cousin in the living room. I’ve literally accepted the fact that we both bout to die because I left the window open & I just know whoever or whatever tf that was bout to find us. I tell this nigga I love em. I hug him. Then in the middle of the hug I saw lights outside.

HEADLIGHTS. Somebody outside! I’m looking out the window from behind the couch and I can see a big ass F-250 truck outside. This is the old white man who live on the other side of my uncle property. It’s him and his fuckin wife. They wanted to see if our power was out too

Me & my cousin just run out the side door house & toward this nigga truck. We tell him everything in like 7 seconds. He told us to stay in the truck with his wife & he pulled out his YeeHaw Clint Eastwood lookin pistol. I aint never been more excited to see a white man in my life

I noticed that the window in the room we were just in was closed now. I told his wife that somebody was definitely in the house now & she is literally screaming at him to get out the house but he not answering. She called 911 & made them send every available officer this town had

This man finally come out the house, and run back to the truck. We drove back to his house and waited for the police to show up. I finally got thru to my uncle and he wasn’t answering because they were on a fire call. He came right back to the house as the police showed up

The police searched the entire house and didn’t find anything. No signs of forced entry. No scratches on the windows. No dents on the doors. The only thing they found was ALOT of water on the floor and in the halls. They asked us if we had been playing in the water and we said no

We told the police the whole story, but these niggas treated us like we were just little kids seeing things. I KNOW WHAT TF I SAW & they wrote it off as just us being up too late. My uncle took us to stay at the fire station that night. You fuckin pay me to stay in that house.

While they didn’t properly dispose of the Ouija board, maybe it’s good they burned it…

The next morning, my uncle and a few of the other fireman we back out to the house. They went in the house, got the ouija board, took it out in front of the house and burned it. My uncle and his wife got a preacher to bless the house, but I still never went back there.

I don’t wanna believe that was really my aunt. At the end of the day, I know she was mean but I don’t think she would wanna hurt us. I still think that was some kinda demon or evil spirit, but I still can’t explain why they police found water on the floor. Maybe it was her…

I remember talking to my uncle about the next day. He said that when he found the rifle I was using, it didnt have the safety on it. Which means there was NO reason it shouldn’t have fired. It was fully loaded. I still think about that every single day.

The moral of the story? Whether or not you believe what happened to Marcus was a supernatural event, it’s probably a bad idea to mess around with anything that has to do with contacting spirits. You know, just in case.

Pilotworks, the distributed kitchen service which raised $13 million in venture funding from investors including Campbell’s Soup Co.’s investment arm, is shutting down.

The company issued a brief statement on its website yesterday with the news

It is with a heavy heart that after failing to raise the necessary capital to continue operations, Pilotworks will cease operations on October 13th, 2018. We realize the shock of this news and the disruption it causes for the independent food community we were so honored to serve.

This is a sad outcome for Pilotworks, the makers in our kitchens, and independent food in general. We wish there was another option to continue operating. Sadly, there was not. The work the independent food community is doing is amazing and inspiring. We know it will live on and we are deeply sorry it will not be with Pilotworks.

There are a lot of things about that summer that I don’t remember, but I can clearly recall the golden sunlight filtering through the diagonal, green leaflets and falling like glittering rain onto the floor of dirt and fallen limbs. The sharp, rusted edges of discarded metal cans would glint into sparkles with the precipitation of a cotton-candy sky. And I remember spinning. I would whip my head around and my vision would blur into dripping watercolors. The trees would stretch and transform into an entirely new landscape and if I closed my eyes I could still see their sparkling outline in the darkness of my eyelids.

“Do you see it?” I would hear them yell.

And I hadn’t seen it, not yet, so I kept spinning until I felt like my feet would collapse and my insides would curdle into hard chunks. My feet began to clumsily trip over themselves, and I slowed my turning. My stomach lurched with unease, and I turned toward the gap between trees.

“I see it!” I screamed.

And I heard the rest of them giggle with nervous excitement. My eyes blurred back and forth. My vision still mixing reality with the watercolor strokes of movement. The shadow stood between the trees, and it was tall. If you didn’t concentrate, you might just think it was another tree, but as my eyes filled with soft, wet blur, I could see each limb clearly. He stood just over 8-feet tall, and as I fell onto my knees in the crunchy, dead foliage I could make out his top hat and the coat tails of his tuxedo.

“He’s here,” I croaked out, and I strained my eyes to stay open.

“Don’t blink,” one of them ordered.

My eyes fluttered with dryness and agitation, but I kept watching him. He slowly tipped his hat toward me, and I lifted a hand to reciprocate. He was still cloaked in darkness, but Billy had said if you stare long enough, if you just endure the stinging pain of inflammation, you’d see his face.

“Black eyes,” Billy had said. “Just black holes. There’s nothing there. Nothing. And if you see him smile, close your eyes and wish him away. Don’t hesitate. Never hesitate.”

“Mister Mortem,” I said.

“That is the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard,” Lena fell back onto the gray carpet of my childhood bedroom with a muffled thud.

I laughed too, but the memory flooded back to me with painful illumination.

“So,” Lena began, sitting up and crossing her legs. “What happens if he smiles?”

“I don’t know,” I laughed again. “I closed my eyes.”

“There’s no creepy urban legend?”

“One kid said he would suck your soul out of your nostrils,” I choked out in a fit of giggles. “Another said he would pluck your eyeballs out with a wooden skewer and eat them. You know, so he could see this world.”

“Nom, nom, nom,” Lena laughed grabbing a handful of popcorn and shoving it into her mouth.

“You know his favorite eye color?” I asked, and she leaned closer to me, her eyes sparkling with intrigue. “Little mahogany fuckers like you,” I whispered

She exploded with laughter again bringing her hands to her eyes to cover them.

“I bet he likes brown eyes because they are the most common,” she said. “You can see more. Bigger world view.”

I shook my head and sighed. If I closed my eyes, I could see that sparkling forest, and I could see him again. That night, he stood deep in the forest. The next time we tried, he was closer. And the next time, he was so close, if I had reached my hand out in front me, I could have touched his blurred outline. That was the last time we played the game. I remember watching the curve of his thin grey lips began to slide into a crescent, and I slammed my eyelids shut. When I opened them again, the forest was empty. The next morning, my eyes were bloody with irritation and they watered hot, sticky goo. My mother made me stay home from school and told me to stop “getting into god knows what” in those woods. After a few days, the itchy pain subsided, and my eyes shimmered a deep green again.

“He almost got you,” Billy had said.

I punched the pudgy flesh of his arm and told him to “shut up.” I told him it was all made up. I’d just gotten dust in my eyes from all the spinning.

I never told Billy that sometimes as I closed to sleep, I could see him standing in the doorway of my room. But I’d blink, and the opening would be empty, just the soft filtered light of my bumble bee night light remained.

I could hear his voice now, the squeaky crack of pubescent cutting through the word “almost.”

“So, are we going to play?” Lena asked.

“No way,” I said lifting my body upright.

Lena stood up, and she began spinning. She laughed into the emptiness of my old house.

“Misterrrrr” she growled. “Mister Mortem show yourself!”

“Come on, man,” she continued. “Steal these peepers, and get me out of my calculus final!”

“Lena,” I hissed. “Stop it.”

She slowed her spin and fell onto the floor with hiccupy giggles. She leaned toward me, and her breath smelled like the red wine we’d been drinking.

“This really scares you, huh?” she asked.

I didn’t reply. I just pushed her backward with my left palm.

“I’m hungry,” she said, and we both stood up and moved toward the kitchen. The house was dark, and I flipped on overhead lights as we walked through the house to brighten the darkness I was feeling. It had been years since I’d thought of him. It had been years since I’d seen his slim outline outside my bedroom. I’d chalked most of my visions up to childhood fear, and I’d tucked the story deep into the folds of my brain.

When we reached the kitchen, I pulled a non-stick pan from one of the cabinets and clicked on the burner with a whoosh of heat and blue embers. I turned to see Lena headfirst in the refrigerator. She emerged with a pack of orange cheese in her right hand and a green grape squeezed between her teeth. She bit down on the grape, and it squirted clear liquid across the floor, a lump of gooey grape guts falling down her chin.

“Like an eyeball,” she laughed and flicked her tongue down her face to reach the bits of grape shrapnel.

I rolled my eyes at her and leaned across the counter to the roll of paper towels. I threw the roll at her, and it rapped against her chest with a soft thump. She reeled backward in artificial horror and then fell forward laughing again.

I walked to the pantry and found half a loaf of wheat bread. I un-clipped the bag and pulled out four fluffy slices letting my fingers drag over their pilled texture. Lena came around my side and laid two slices of cheese onto the open slices of bread.

“Butter?” I asked.

She walked back toward the refrigerator, and when she opened the door, I could hear the familiar buzz of machinery louden.

“Ah ha!” she smiled as she turned toward me holding a stick of butter.

She slid the butter across the counter to me, and I unwrapped the wax paper from the stick. While I slid a knife into the creamy flesh of the stick, Lena skipped out of the room, humming to herself.

I laid one of the sandwiches onto the heated pan, and it burst into a whispered thrum of sizzling. When I looked back toward Lena, she was spinning again. Her blonde waves erupted from her head like a maypole, and her golden, brown eyes were closed. I was about to tell her to stop when her eyes snapped open and her body immediately stopped moving, the residual motion coming out of her limbs in shaky waves.

As lieutenant governor of New Mexico, I have had the privilege of living and serving in a state with over 50 percent minority residents. Now that I’m in the last few months of my second term, I want to share a little bit about my story and explain why many Hispanics should and will vote for Republicans in the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

I was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico and was the youngest of eight children. We were raised by a single mother in absolute poverty.

When I got older, I realized I had been raised with solid conservative values. My mother was never political. However, she taught us the values of personal responsibility and hard work. She showed us that taking advantage of opportunity was the way out of poverty.

When I use the word “poverty,” what I mean is this: there was a time in our life when we didn’t have running water. I grew up using an outhouse. I know what it is like to have holes in my shoes.

However, it wasn’t poverty itself that shaped me – it was my mother telling me that although no one owed me anything, there was hope. In this amazing country of America, anything is possible.

My mother told all of us that if we worked hard, stayed in school and did the right thing we could live the American Dream. She was right.

I often tell the story of going through the trashcans behind the local supermarket with my brothers, trying to find cardboard from old boxes to replace the worn-out soles of our shoes. We hoped it wouldn’t rain that night, causing our shoes to fall apart on the way to school.

But the story didn’t end there. Because we lived the values passed to us by my mother, we achieved success.

I found myself 40 years later having dinner with the president of the United States. Sitting there with the most powerful man, in the most powerful city, in the most powerful nation in the world, I looked down at my new expensive dress shoes. I realized how far my mother’s values and her dream of America had taken me.

Like many Hispanic families, we wanted to secure a better life, so we started a business at Mom’s kitchen table. We founded what would become one of New Mexico’s most successful small businesses, twice being honored as the small business of the year. We did this by following the pro-business, empowerment principles that we learned at home and found in the Republican Party.

After realizing the truth of the American Dream, I was compelled to give back to my community through public service. My first election was to serve as a councilman of our small community, working hard to empower the business community.

Next, I was inspired to do what many thought was impossible: taking on the powerful speaker of the New Mexico state House. At that time, Raymond Sanchez was the longest-serving speaker of any assembly in the nation. In a heavily Hispanic district that was 2-1 registered in favor of the Democrats, I emerged the winner as the Republican candidate.

Having the same last name as the opposing candidate, all that separated us was the values that we fought for. I spoke about the hand up while he talked about the hand out. I discussed using welfare as a trampoline to propel you to a better life; he spoke of welfare as a hammock to lie in, keeping you safe until you die.

I went on to speak of how the empowerment of education leads to economic freedom. He believed people deserved increased dependency on government.

Obviously, my message resonated with our people and we won!

As a businessman, city councilman, state representative, and now as lieutenant governor of New Mexico, these are the values that I believe in, as we wage a battle between two distinct visions for America.

The traditional Hispanic values include a strong faith in God, a deep sense of patriotism, devotion to family, reverence for the sanctity of life and a powerful work ethic. There is a strong drive among traditional Hispanics to be free to build lives that hold to these values without government interference or societal condemnation.

In the 1960s, these values were not incongruent with the Democratic Party. Growing up, my uncle always had a picture of President John F. Kennedy in his home. During my lifetime, however, I have seen the Democratic Party morph into something JFK would not recognize.

As of late, those on the left have little interest in job creation or patriotism. They are now using the word “socialist” to define themselves, and their agenda features massive government takeovers of scores of private industries, including health care. There is no room in their angry rhetoric for the mainstays of Hispanic life: faith, family and freedom.

There also seems to be a disconnect between the Democratic Party and Hispanic citizens’ views on immigration.

Hispanic Americans do not want foreign criminals to flood our southern border, hidden among the legal workers many of our industries need.

We do not want the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to be disarmed, allowing drug dealers to run loose among us.

As the owner of a construction business, I can appreciate that there are often not enough available legal workers. However, a competent guest worker policy could solve many of these problems. It is not impossible.

If we could send men to the moon with less technology than we now have in a few of our smartphones, clearly we can implement a coherent immigration policy.

Elections have consequences. Going back to the double-digit unemployment we suffered under President Obama is not an option. Republicans offer the best hope Hispanics have for a better life.

I implore all American Hispanics to vote Republican in the midterm elections. Republicans are fighting our fights – for a stronger military, increased economic growth, religious freedom and job creation. The list is endless.

Already, with a Republican Congress and a Republican president, unemployment for Hispanics is now lower than it has been in my lifetime.

In 2017, the median income for Hispanic households rose at more than twice the rate of the rest of the population. The national gross domestic product has climbed above 4 percent under the Trump administration. And global respect for the U.S. is quickly returning.

From the state house to the White House, we need to stand together and elect the people who will stand for us.

The combination of Hispanic Republicans running for office and their identification with core values among Hispanic voters is leading to some surprising results.

Hispanics in Texas earlier this year were showing support for Gov. Greg Abbot 49 to 45 percent. And Sen. Ted Cruz now appears to be leading comfortably in his re-election campaign, with roughly 37 percent of Hispanics favoring him.

Also in Texas this year, GOP state Sen. Pete Flores was elected to a seat that had been held by Democrats for 139 years, defeating a popular Democrat.

Is Ghosting The New Normal?

It was our second “first date.”

Two and a half years ago, Steve hit me up on OK Cupid. Not my usual type––he had very long wavy hair, close-shaved beard and mustache, and tats, seemingly everywhere.

Substantially younger than me, he looked older, almost Willie Nelson-ish. Rock girl though I may be in moniker, and in sensibility, that look has nary been my leaning. But, there was something in his eyes, a softness, which softened me. Loving pictures with his young children added to his charm.

They also threw up a big red flag.

My youngest had just left home for college weeks before, and my oldest, although still living with me, was of age, and independent––and, any man who posts pictures with his kids on his dating profile, admirable in so many ways, doesn’t exactly scream ready for romance.

I answered him anyway.

Coming off yet another long dry spell, figuratively and literally, there’d been a succession of matches which led to either no communication, conversations which evaporated into cyber air, or, men who did––even after a fun first date.

There was an intense brief romance with a sexy Parisian who said we were soul-connected until he very swiftly disconnected.

He kind of said goodbye before he checked out, which is more thanI can say for Don. His last text invited me to talk. That was three springs ago. He’s yet to return the call.

Paul sent me a lovely message saying he wanted me to know he was interested in me but he was leaving the country and that’s why he’d be temporarily MIA. Define temporarily.

Post my separation 8 years ago, after a 20-year marriage, I had no clue what dating was about. I’d never done it.

Back in the day, before the internet, and cell phone apps, we met in person. Eyeball to eyeball. Or, at least, eyeball to cute ass. Almost without exception, it was all in for both of us, from the get-go.

My business requires me to leave the sanctity of my kitchen and computer to attend social events; I’m sober, and attend meetings to remain so; I’m blessed to have some wonderful friends who invite me to do stuff with them. I enjoy being out in the world, in spite of my inclination to lazy out and isolate. So, I go.

And, yet, I was meeting no one. It seemed everyone who piqued my interest was either taken or too cool for the room. Or, at least, my room.

After four years of too many nights, weeks, months, alone, with a few dalliances sprinkled in between, my therapist encouraged––badgered me, to get on the dating sites.

I must have had beginners luck because pretty much everyone I matched with reached out and wanted to meet. I had no idea at the time what an anomaly that was. I consumed enough Starbuck’s to drown a rhinoceros. Of all the men I connected with, I discovered without exception, all of them had lied about at least one thing in their profile. And none yielded or warranted a second date.

Seeking substance, Tinder led to OKCupid, where profiles were more in-depth and there were questions to match compatibility. But, unlike Tinder, OKCupid, not linked to Facebook, or corroborated by anything, quickly proved to be filled with men who either stole their pictures from others, or, were involved with others, and were just looking for some online intrigue––like maybe some naked pictures, or, a playmate to sext with.

After innumerable connections with men who upon being asked the most basic question, like, “What’s your name?” disappeared into the night, I decided to focus elsewhere. Not before being blindsided by a seemingly real, genuine good guy who romanced the shit out of me before pulling a Houdini whenI asked to switch to text.

Doing a reverse Google Image search (I amassed a few tricks after being repeatedly burned) I learned that he was a Mormon, dating a gorgeous 19-year-old who clearly assumed she had his undivided attention. When I messaged him on Twitter, he panicked, claimed someone stole his pics, and within a week, proposed to said girl.

OKCupid, I decided, was stupid.

Back to Tinder, which at least connects to one’s Facebook, and eliminated the total imposters. Except Ryan, who was actually Patrick, discovered accidentally when he said he was in one state but the app disagreed and placed him in another. He was gone faster than a box of Krispie Kremes at an AA meeting.

Photo by Jewel Samad/Getty Images.

This time around, matches either never begat a word, ceased after a hello or so, or, they’d provide an unsolicited dick pic within moments.

I was schooled by my male friends that “What are you looking for?” is code for hookup. When I wasn’t game for that, they were gone into the ether.

Granted, I lean young, but even when I made a conscious effort to make more appropriate choices the results remained pretty much the same.

It’s me. Right?

Speaking to just about every single and seeking person I know––not so much.

When Steve, the single dad appeared, in spite of his hair and tattoos, he was a successful creative businessman and he seemed relatively normal.

After a few days of intense text exchanges, I pushed away a few warnings of deviancy, encouraged by his seemingly sane life, and his dogged appreciation and pursuit of me.

We met at a park on a cloudy afternoon. From the first moment, any reservations I’d had were gone––a bolt of connection and attraction struck hard and fast. We talked for hours, without breaking eye contact.

When he had to leave to pick up his kids, he kissed me, gently, briefly, yet it was sparky and memorable. He said he’d like to take me on a proper date––at night. I was thrilled and yet, without thinking or taking a pause, I asked how this could work with his full-time responsibility to being a dad and my newfound freedom. He assured me that he could work it out, that’s what babysitters were for.

I left him, hopeful and high-flying, my gut nagging, “Why did I pose that question when things felt so damn good?” Fear? Self-sabotage? Nah! The way he looked at me. It was ok. As if to confirm that, a lovely text exchange followed.

When days later, the texts we’re becoming frequently less inspired, and less, period, I was still shocked when without notice, they ceased completely, except mine to him which went unanswered.

I blamed myself.

I obsessively checked his Instagram seeking an answer, garnering none. Eventually, I stopped looking. When I’d scroll past his posts in my feed I’d get a pang of WTF and move on––until this one night two and half years later. An artful, ridiculously sexy image of a man and woman kissing appeared. Without intending to, my mouse lingered a bit too long over the photo and somehow Liked it without my knowledge or consent. Mortified, I instantly reversed it.

Too late. A moment later he private messaged me as if a few days had passed since our last date.

Still, somehow, liking the guy, wanting answers, and not wanting to kibosh it again (because of course, it was my fault last go ‘round), I made no reference to the passage of time or his vanishing act. We went out again, this time on that proper date for dinner; making out like teenagers on the sidewalk afterward, maybe not so proper. So, we took a drive. If we had heat the first time, this time we had fire. When we said goodnight, we talked about picking it back up soon, not before I again brought up his kids. Oh yes, I did.

For the next couple of days, there were a few lame texts, initiated by yours truly. Then silence. When a few days later he reached out, I was ecstatic, this time was different.

That was the last I heard from him.

Boo.

Three weeks ago, Jon asked me out the very day we matched.

I was freshly smarting from a painfully abrupt break up with a guy I’d actually been seeing for a few months. I was determined to get back on the dating horse and not suffer. This was quick, but Jon was intelligent, funny, accomplished, and like-minded. Why not?

Over dinner, we talked about online dating, and ghosting. He admitted I was his first physical date after months on the app. He said he’d ghosted more than a few women after messaging them.

When pressed, he explained his reluctance to start anything––it seemed more effort than it was worth––or he was willing to take after a messy divorce. He said I was different. Walking me to my car he asked permission to kiss me. That’s kind of weird, and not very sexy, but he said he’d been thinking about it throughout dinner and wanted me to know this wasn’t a friend thing. He added, “No ghosting, ok?” He wasn’t kidding, there’s no friend thing, there’s no no-thing.

It’s been radio silence ever since.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks talking to everyone I can think of who online dates in an attempt to understand what the hell is going on.

Is ghosting the new normal?

It appears to be sadly more true than not. I’m not the only one having these kinds of experiences. And yet, there seem to be plenty of stories of people who meet online and not only date but mate––some even partnering for the long haul.

Is it a numbers game and I picked a really high one?

It seems in part to be a Mars/Venus thing. Some men swipe every single woman, and then, afterthey match, look at her pictures. If they like her, maybethen they read her profile. I don’t know these men personally, or at least none of the ones I do will cop to that behavior. But I do know quite a few who’ve said that matching alone is the conquest, and once that’s done they lose interest and it’s on to the next.

What?

Or, they’re so interested that fear takes over and worry about money, their car, career, their sex, and whether they’ll measure up, drives them to give up before they start. And yet, one friend admitted that if he connected with a woman who really rang his bell he’d push through.

So it’s true, he’s just not that into you.

Or me.

I know women have ghosted in kind. Myself, included. But I can explain mine. Can too. If a guy’s creepy or inappropriate, I feel justified in not responding. And, a few times I realized I’d made mistake and it was easier to just drift away. Shoot me. From the left. It’s my good side.

33 Spooky Supernatural Stories (That Are Completely True)

These spooky stories from Ask Reddit only have supernatural explanations.

1.I did not see it but I would hear it and smell it. The first place I worked at as a nurse was haunted. In the middle of the night when everyone was in bed, the sound of a wheeled walker would go past the nursing station. There was occasionally a smell like unwashed hair that would occur in a corner of the nursing station. It did not smell like anyone there, and it was the same smell every time.

I went walking in a cemetery once in the middle of winter and smelled sweet spring flowers like narcissus floating in front of me. I got back to the car and heard skittering in the leaves. There was no wind. I turned around and three leaves were chasing themselves in a tiny vortex. I asked who they were, and the leaves fell to ground.

2.Back in 1999 I was staying in a friend’s house for the night with a few other girls, we were standing by her bedroom window smoking, must have been around 11pm, across the road we saw two lads we had been in school with walking towards town (my friend lived in a house about a mile and a half from town). We banged on the window and shouted but they didn’t look and carried on walking towards town. The next day, we found out that the two lads we had seen had been killed in a car crash on the night we saw them, way before 11pm. They had been playing pool in the village pub and decided to drive into town for a drink and another car smashed into them head on, about half a mile before my friend’s house.

3.My aunt’s Yorkshire Terrier was put to sleep at 13 years old because she was riddled with cancer. I was at her house about six months later, and we were all hanging out on the back porch one night, just chatting and enjoying the evening. No one was drinking or anything.

I went inside to use the bathroom, and as I walked out, I tripped over something furry. As I went down, I saw a distinctly Yorkie shaped shadow on the wall.

It didn’t scare me so much as it surprised me, because I had no room to second guess myself on this. I know what I felt on my bare feet and I know what I saw silhouetted on the wall.

4.I swear there were ghosts following me for a few years. In college I started to notice that when I was alone, I’d hear little shifting sounds. Just the sound of something moving slightly. Little things would fall off a shelf, but nothing that would break. It happened at work when I was alone, in my house especially when alone, just anywhere really. I start to think now that something is there… However I wasn’t that scared because I thought if this was actually a violent ghost they’d be breaking stuff. So I just out loud one day say “You know, you can hang out with me if you want but you don’t need to make all the noise”

Then, it stopped. I never heard the sounds for months. Then it started again. I told my roommate and she was creeped out. Her friend came to stay one night, and my roommate did not mention anything about my story. Next day her friend says she woke up in the middle of the night and swore she saw two Victorian era looking boys taking their coats on and off.

So we figure this must be the ghosts. So I say again “Please stop making this noise. You can be around me and play with me, I’ll be your friend.”

The noises stopped and I didn’t really notice it again.

5.Not something I saw, but when I was around 10 we had an old piano in the basement. At night, I would hear the most beautiful music being played on it.

I’m not much of a believer in the supernatural, but I’ve never been able to come up with an explanation. I’m the only one in my family with any sort of musical talent (and not much, at that) and this piano was incredibly out of tune and missing a couple strings.

6.Had a coworker I got along great with. We were good friends in the first two months of what was going to be a great broship. He was always punctual so when he failed to show up for work and answer his texts I had a feeling something was wrong. That day I just happened to work till 11pm.

I had to stay late to finish his work before I could get off. I’ve lived in Michigan and grew up in the country so when I’m walking at night I keep my hood on, no music and I walk home as fast as I can. It was a quiet night, so dark I only saw the smallest twinkle of stars in the sky. I get a creepy feeling I’m being followed but see nothing at all. I resolve to stay alert as I hit the halfway mark to home. On the way home at night the last strech has no streetlights. Once I pass the last street light then I hear it. Click. Click. Clickclick. It sounds like a bike. When I turn my head I see it. “It” was something that looked like a girl around my height with her black dog besides her. She had a white shirt with a skirt on. But it didn’t make any sense why she wasn’t going to ride her bike home.

Click. Click. Clickclickclick. I knew what the black dog meant then and sped up. The girl had no face as I casually glanced back. Click click, went the bike as she walked with the dog. I didn’t run but instead picked up my walking pace casually as if I was almost home. I didn’t look back again and the clicking stopped as I slipped into my apartment area.

Found out the next day my coworker passed away the day he didn’t come in. I’ve taken the same route home several times in the year since my coworker died but not once have I heard the click click of a bike, a faceless woman in white, or seen a black dog.

7.I didn’t believe in ghosts. I’m still very skeptical of the idea of ghosts. The idea we exist after death seems way too optimistic to be true. That being said, I had a very strange experience.

I was in college in Chicago and my friends and I found a weird apartment. The space had been a bar that predates prohibition that was loosely converted into a loft. And when I say loosely, I mean there were dividing walls that didn’t go to the ceiling to separate the rooms and there was a shower and they took the bar itself out, but other than that very little work had been done on the place.

There was a creepy as fuck basement. In the basement, there was a turn of the century beer cooling ice vault. It was a big heavy room all lined with wood with a big heavy door and suspicious hooks and hoses dangling from the ceiling.

Now, my room had a closet under the stairs to go up to the apartments on the higher floor. There was a door to the closet, which was under the taller part of the stairs. Then, there was another door inside the first door into the small space under the lower stairs. Behind THAT door, there was a trap door set into the floor that was nailed shut. All three doors had locks on the outsides of the doors.

Curious as to where the trap door went, I looked around in the creepy basement, only to find the trapdoor in my room led to a space in the basement that was completely walled off, like a room with no door.

One day, I was sewing in my room, and the closet doors kept popping open on their own. We used to joke there was a ghost because of the creepy basement. I thought the ghost was just a joke and my closet door kept popping open because of a draft or something. I kept shutting it, it kept popping open. Eventually I got pissed because every time the door popped open it would hit my chair and disrupt my sewing. I actually latched the door shut. I sit back down. And right before my eyes I see the latch pop open for no fucking reason and the doors swung open with force and smacked my chair really hard.

Pissed, I stood up and said “FUCK OFF YOU STUPID GHOST I AM TRYING TO GET WORK DONE!” And the doors swung shut on their own and then I saw the latch dropped back into place on its own, and the doors never popped open on their own again after that.

I feel a little bad. Sorry I yelled at you, spooky ghost. I thought I was just fucking around but if ghosts exist I yelled at you way too harshly over some chair bumping.

8.About a year or so ago, my dog and I had an encounter with what is referred to as a “stickman”.

It was a bit after 4am and I was wrapping up some late night work from home. My piece was done, but there was another team that needed to run through a battery of tests. While waiting on them, I decided to duck out for 15 minutes to catch a smoke and get my dog out.

When we got downstairs and outside, I let me dog off leash so she go find her perfect spot to pee and poop (seriously, it takes her forever to pick a spot) while I lit up my cigarette and kept an eye on her. A few minutes pass and my dog starts narrowing in on a spot to crap. Being the responsible dog owner I am, I start walking her way with poop bag in hand ready to pick up whatever foul present she had decided to gift the lawn with. However, just as she about to hunch over and squeeze one out, she went ridged and started growling at the tree about 10 feet in front of her.

I kept walking towards her, but looked over towards the tree. With no street lights and it being the dead of night, I couldn’t make anything out nor could I hear anything. However, my dog was convinced something was over there. So, to get her to chill the fuck out before she started barking and woke everyone up, I started walking towards the tree in an attempt to show her nothing was wrong. I think I got within 5 or 6 feet of the tree before it stepped out from behind it and in front of me. It was tall. Really tall! I actually had to look up to see it’s head. Being 6’7″ myself, that doesn’t happen to me all that often. Beyond the tallness, it was skinny. Like too skinny to host organs skinny. It was all black too with no real discernible features including the face. I just stood there for a second and so did it. Then it turned around and ran from us in the weirdest fashion. Almost like it was floating but still moving its legs. No sound either.

I watched it as it effortlessly covered 50 or so yards and jumped a six foot fence in a matter of seconds. Then it was gone. Weirdest shit I have ever seen.

9.When I was ~8 I was outside my school in the car rider pick up line waiting for my parents. We were all sitting in the front courtyard area and being a bit of a loner I was sting there listening to the kids around me talk and play. Across the street was a huge beautiful old oak tree with a massive plume of leave that were turning colors of orange and red as fall was coming. I was watching the leaves sway in the wind and listening to rising and falling rustle produced. At some point I think I went into a trance watching the leaves and listening to the wind as everything seemed to fade away except for the tree and wind.

It was then I started hearing voice. It seemed to come from the sound of leaves rustling but was also separate from them. It was a whisper that seemed to come from a distance. That may sound cliche but that’s the only way I can describe it.

It simply said, “A big one is coming.”

A bit startled and confused I said I didn’t understand. It repeated itself. I said I didn’t know what it meant and it replied, “You will see”. And that was the end of it. Everything seemed to come back into focus. I told my parents who were spiritual and they were a bit concerned but not alarmed. There had been stories of people in our family who had odd things happen to them. My dad even had a few stories of his own.

A week later I was at my cousins house at dusk playing with them on the trampoline. I was laying on the trampoline resting after playing for the last few hours while my 2 cousins were sitting on the edge talking. The wind started as a light breeze but then picked up to a steady gust. It happened again. This time it said, “It’s coming. It’s coming and they don’t know.” I asked who they were and what it was. It replied back, “Too late, it’s here.” That was the end.

About 10 minutes later the back door swung open to my uncles trailer and my aunt started yelling for us to come in. On the news they were reporting about a tornado that had quickly spawned above a town about 30 minutes north of us. It killed over a dozen people because it spawned so quickly that there was no warning.

I’ve never had that happen again and I’m not sure I’d want it to.

10.I was in my grandparent’s kitchen with my cousin, talking about all the important things that 9-year-olds have to discuss. We were both seated in swivel chairs perpendicular to a hallway, which ended with a door on the left (to the cellar) and a door on the right (to the bathroom). Suddenly I see a white cat waltz across the hall from out of the cellar and into the bathroom.

My cousin spins back around and stares at me, mouth open and eyes wide. She asks if I just saw the cat walk by and I nod. The two of us get up and walk cautiously to the end of the hallway. The cellar door was closed and latched, and the bathroom was completely empty. I still have no idea what we saw, but it was creepy that we’d both seen the same thing.

11.My cousin committed suicide when he was 23. Entire family was devastated.

My other cousin (his sister) was his favorite person in the world. About 2 hours after his body had been found, my cousin (who I was with at the time) got a call from his number it was nothing but silence and occasional white noise.

After keeping the call going for roughly for 5 minutes, I told her to just hang up. A few minutes after hanging up and she gets a text from his number saying something along the lines of “I’m sorry. I love you. I hope you can forgive me.”

What freaked us out was that the cops still had his phone in evidence and this was back before scheduled texting was a thing. Either a sick prank by some cops or something else…

12.I’ve had a lot of creepy experiences, but I think this is the only one that isn’t a “typical ghost story”

I was about 13 at the time, home alone, and it was pretty late at night. My family left for something while I was asleep a few hours earlier so I was just doing some chores while waiting for them to come home. For reference, my back door has a pretty large window on it and its raised above the ground because it leads to our back deck/porch, so you can get a pretty good view of the backyard just from inside. Our lights were on but they don’t illuminate much of the yard, so after about 15-20 feet the rest of the yard is either dimly lit or pitch black.

I was doing some laundry and glance out the window where I see what looks like a large tan figure on the ground. At the time we had a boxer who was pretty large for her breed, so I thought nothing of it and just assumed she was let out earlier and I forgot to let her back in. I walk out onto the deck and start calling for her to come inside

I hear her claws clicking on the floor from inside the house behind me and whatever the hell is in the yard starts to stand up. It stretches out what I guess would be one of its front legs/arms and this limb is long. Like no way it could be human or a dog long. It had to be at least three or four feet long. Its body is super skinny and it starts raising its head which is too small compared to how large it’s limbs and body are. It starts turning my way but I book it back into the house as fast as a I can and lock every lock on the door. I couldn’t see many features because it was in a darker part of the yard, but I know whatever the hell it was was inhuman. I could hear the grass and leaves rustling so I know something was out there and I don’t think it was a hallucination.

13.The first one I remember was back in August of 2016. I was on my patio smoking a cigarette in the dead of night. It had to be around 4 am. There was no noise (sirens/TV/radio, etc.) in the background. Out of nowhere, I heard someone (something?) whisper in my ear “Annie”. I jumped and looked around. There was no one outside at all. I ran back inside and hid in my room.

Second one was around that time. In my bedroom, I had a dresser with a mirror attached to it. The dresser faced my bed so I could see the mirror while I was laying down. One night, I was about to go to sleep when out the corner of my eye, I saw a figure of a man walk past my mirror. The first time I saw it, I passed it off as sleep deprivation, but then it started to happen almost every night. After a few nights of seeing the figure walk past my mirror, I calmly said “I have no ill will against you. If you promise not to harm me, you can stay,” which sounds funny if you think about it, but the figure never harmed me. I saw spirit orbs (it was not dust as I could see a bright light moving around) around my apartment all the time and never once felt fear.

More recently, when I was at the ER, my at the time boyfriend had dropped me off because he had to go to work. While I was in the room, I fell asleep on my stomach. I’m not sure how long I was asleep, but I woke up to someone shoving my back. It was a hard shove, too. I looked around thinking it was my boyfriend waking me up. There was no one in the room. I put my head back down and felt another shove. I shot up and stayed awake for the rest of the hospital visit. Definitely freaked me out.

Lastly, I have a spirit (possibly same one from my apartment) in my home now. I still hear my name being called occasionally when I’m home alone. I see a single orb all the time (mainly at night) and an occasional shadow if the lights are on.

14.I was staying in a friend’s house in a city that’s known for having a lot of old haunted houses. She’s an atheist, a doctor, very smart and very skeptical lady, so when she straight-up told me, “I’d love to have you come visit, but fair warning, my house is haunted,” I was like “…?” but I’ve known her since I was literally in the womb (we’re almost exactly the same age and our moms are close friends and used to hang out together constantl, as did we) so if she said it, I believed her.

She reported a number of incidents to me that I didn’t personally witness, like furniture moving by itself in a locked room, shit getting violently knocked over and thrown around, her dogs refusing to go in the basement, even seeing a semi-transparent human figure when she pulled into her driveway one night.

For perspective, it’s a pretty small house, and not very soundproof, so it’s easy to know where someone is. You generally enter through the side door, and that opens into a long hallway. Basement door on the left, bedroom door on the left, kitchen on the left, living room and dining room to the right, bathroom towards the other end of the house. The dining room was separated from the living room by a wall, and had been the source of most of the stuff she told me about.

So the first night I’m there, everything’s cool, we say goodnight, she goes into her room with her dogs and shuts the bedroom door. I’m getting ready for bed in the living room. All of a sudden I hear the side door open and SLAM shut. I jump like a foot in the air, but it’s also a crappy storm door, so whatever, maybe there’s just a stiff breeze.

Then the fucking footsteps start. I’m sitting perfectly still on the couch. My friend is a tiny lady (like maybe 100 pounds). Her dogs are medium sized (30-40). And I start hearing these HUGE, booming footsteps, like an enormous person wearing really heavy boots is walking slowly down the hall. For perspective, at the time I was in a relationship with someone who weighed about 350lbs and wore steel-toed boots most of the time, and even he didn’t make that much noise. But they sound exactly like footsteps, and they are definitely coming down the hallway.

They finally reach the entrance to the living room, which was almost directly across from the bedroom door. The noise keeps happening, but it stays almost in one place, and I get the distinct sensation that whatever it was, is turning around to look at the closed bedroom door. At that point, I finally look up, and there’s a huge shadow in the middle of the hall, takes up the whole width of it and falls over the bedroom door. I don’t know how to describe it at all, but it really felt like I was looking at the back of some shadowy but very solid creature.

I am not a religious or spiritual person, generally, but I basically play one on TV — I’m from the rural South, and I have OCD (which makes me very superstitious, for lack of a better term, particularly fixating on the idea that something I do or don’t do will cause harm to people I love). I don’t want to go into too much about this because that’s not the point of the story, but on pure instinct, I did some ‘good luck’ stuff, and I remember not being able to look up from the coffee table, feeling like something was pushing my head down, just thinking, “Go away, leave her alone, go away, pick on someone your own fucking size” just over and over for what felt like forever. Then the pressure lifted, and I looked up, and it was gone. I had a panic attack for like an hour, finally calmed down enough to go to sleep, and the entire rest of the visit was uneventful.

I have never forgotten how scared I was. I don’t know how how she lived with it — about five years after she bought the house, she found out that the previous owner had committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling lamp in the dining room, and that when she saw a picture, he had been the “person” she saw in her driveway. She ended up turning the dining room into a guest bedroom and having the whole place exorcised by a priest (she went to med school at an historically Catholic school and apparently the chaplain did not bat an eyelash. She’s still an atheist, still lives in that house, but last time I was there, every room had a crucifix in it.

15. I experienced the same day twice. This was in 2nd or 3rd grade. I woke up and had my normal breakfast and noted that the same cartoons were playing as yesterday but reruns weren’t uncommon. Went to school and was confused why we were going over the same stuff as yesterday but didn’t question it. Review wasn’t uncommon. It wasn’t until the end of the day we had an extra 20 minutes so the teacher was playing “guess the number 1-100/higher or lower” and you got a piece of candy if you won. So the first round starts and people make their guesses and the first number was 50 and that’s what it was yesterday. I remembered it was 49 after because it was one less and then 99 because it was one less than 100 and then 35 which was her age. I told her I knew what she was picking because these are the numbers she picked yesterday. She said we didn’t play this yesterday and thought I could see the board so when it got to 35 she just scribbled on a piece of paper under her hand. When I told her it was 35 she turned white and said we’re not playing anymore and we never played again.

16.When I was only four years old I became afflicted with night terrors; the full on, wake up soaking the bed with sweat and screaming kind. It continued every night for years. I noticed quickly that it followed a pattern. I would be doing normal things with my family, if I looked away or blinked, they’d disappear, I would hear heavy footfalls coming closer, and lastly I would be chased by what I called the “ghost”. Not very original but I was young.

Like I said, these continued for years, but I started to notice other things as well. When laying down to sleep, I would hear things moving in the room, but when I would look no one was there. It kept escalating. I would hear heavy breathing in my ear and even felt the warmth of the breath. I would turn and there was nothing. Soon I would wake up from my night terrors and my blanket would be neatly folded back over my feat. I would ask my parents and brother if they did it, but they all denied it was them. One night I saw a figure walk by my door. It had the body of a human and the head of a dog. The thing was, it was so dark in my room I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It was something darker than black.

It all culminated one night while I again laid there, waiting to sleep. I felt something cold and hard grip my ankles and dragged me off of the foot of my bed. My parent, stereotypically said I was imagining it all. But I was mad. This thing had the balls to come into MY world and try to scare me? I was 14, hopped up on puberty and ready to kick some ass. I had my night terror like normal, except this time instead of running, I turned around. I saw this weird little alien thing like a cross between the aliens from “Signs” and the typical gray-men. It looked shocked, and I channeled all my anger at something that was worthy of a man’s full wrath. I beat the shit out of that thing. I mean, it was a bloody, pulpy, pile of guts when I was done.

I never had another night terror, or visit from that thing. I’ve also been able to lucid dream from that point on. I also have dreams of the future. Usually a scene that means nothing, but happens around a life-changing event for me.

This is all true though I don’t know the meaning or cause of it. Maybe someone can explain it, but I’m 28 now and still have no more clue to what happened.

17.This actually happened today. I got home from work and was cleaning up my siblings toys. He has this fairly big Spiderman building (like a dollhouse but for Spiderman) that was toppled over in the living room. I lifted that back up and headed off to the kitchen for some food. I hear something fall over and look to see that his toy is again toppled over. Weird I thought nothing of it, maybe I set it down on some other toy so it wasn’t balanced right. I pick it up again and made sure nothing was under it. A couple hours later I am sitting down watching TV when I see clear as day this toy fall over again knowing damn well that I made sure it was balanced upright. I noped right upstairs until someone came home.

It’s 2:50AM now and I cant sleep because I think I keep hearing stuff.

18.Back when I was a kid, I had a scooter (non-motorized) that I would ride until the tires popped… and kept riding once Dad replaces the tires. One day I was riding around in the neighborhood cul-de-sac when I saw a bright, thin blue line appear in front of me. I rode through it since I had no time to stop. When I was able to stop and turn around, the light was gone. I have no idea what that light was and I have never been able to find out, but I know it was there and I rode through it.

19.When my brother and I were really young, probably around 6-7, we lived in a small 2 bed and 1 bath apartment. One night, it was just me and brother sleeping in the bedroom (my parents slept with us on another bed) and we heard a thud in the bathroom. We were both awake so we decided to investigate. The lights were on and I heard clipping sounds from a scissor. I put my ear up to the door and sure enough someone was in the bathroom using scissors. I knocked on the door and called out for my parents but there were no answers. I opened the door and the bathroom was empty. My parents must’ve been in the other room, but I always wondered why the bathroom lights were on and what I heard. I turned off the lights and my brother and I ran back to our beds, spooked af.

20.This image is burned in my memory, I’m still not sure if it was a really wild dream, sleepwalking or it actually happened.

So when i was about 7 or 8, I had a really weird dream where I went outside at night and there were these kids in the backyard. It was a summer night and there was a breeze blowing. I clearly remember the warm wind and the grass on my ankles. These kids, I think a boy and a girl, wanted to play and I never thought of it because I was a kid too and how cool was it to play at night. There was something off about them, they had grayish colored skin and light hair although still human looking. We played around on the swing set until I looked up in the sky and I see this eye. Basically a giant normal human eye that was a green color and looked like it was just projected on the sky. It blinks once, and when I looked down again, the kids were gone.

The next day, my mom swears that either my sister (who had a history of sleepwalking) or me, came into the house after she got home from work late at night.

21.When I was 11 maybe 12, I was inside our house’s “bonus room”, basically just an extra large room we used to put all of our gaming stuff and a couch and TV. I was alone and was sitting or standing next to my couch when suddenly as if it were really happening right in-front of me I both saw and heard chanting and beating drums as though a campfire with a Native American tribe was inside the room with me. The outlines of people dancing and chanting around a fire and beating drums while spinning around the whole ceiling, it felt like it lasted maybe 20 seconds. I had never been so awestruck and terrified in my life i felt absolutely chilled. I only ever had supernatural experience maybe once before this and could have otherwise been unsure, but after that I can’t doubt it. I later found out our neighborhood was built on or near Native-American burial grounds.

22.Okay, so just a heads up, the first story was told to me by family that was around for it, the second I remember vividly.

When I was young (like 2-3) my mother was walking me down the hallway to take a nap in her boyfriend’s house. I stopped and told her “I can’t go there”. When she asked why not I told her “Cause Baba and Tim are sleeping there”. We all later found out that her boyfriend had killed his parents in the hallway; Barbra and Tim.

When I was in second grade, I was also going to after school care at a church across the street. Every Friday, the ice cream man would come by. One day I was standing by the fence waiting for the ice cream man, when a man walked up. Well, he was more a shadow than a man, in a trenchcoat and fedora hat. (Picture film noir private eye style) I just stood there looking at him and he kinda waved me over toward him and I walked over, about the time I got over a kickball kicked by a big fifth grader hit the fence about head level. I turned around to see who kicked it, and when I turned back, the shadow guy winked and disappeared. I think I met my guardian angel.

23.I saw several ufos in one night. It was definitely not just helicopters or planes or stars. These things moved like nothing else. Triangular patterns and near instantaneous jumps from one point to another.

It all started when my brother saw a “green ball of fire” falling out of the sky. We went looking and found a lot. The thing that convinced me was when I saw a… spaceship just blink into existence right in front of me and tilt while flying away. It was pretty damn low. Fifty to seventy feet above a row of houses. Totally silent. No wind coming off of it. The other ships fell into a large triangle behind it. It disappeared again. I saw a black helicopter following its path, but we were on foot and couldn’t keep up.

24.In November of 2011, my mother had her second major stroke and had to be put into long term care, because we just couldn’t give her what she really needed. My husband and I had recently moved out of state to his first military duty station. Luckily, it was only a 5 hour drive and we were able to spend Thanksgiving with my dad that year.

The house I grew up in had always been creepy. Over the years, we heard footsteps upstairs when we were all downstairs, we saw shadows. Doppelgängers and things that just shouldn’t have been there. I hated leaving my dad alone there, as he was ill (at that point, we didn’t know it was cancer, just that he was slowing down). We convinced him to come live with us, but couldn’t bring him right away, because he had to sort through 30 years of accumulation and we were living in a one bedroom house. We made plans to come back and bring him home with us around the first of the year-6 weeks later.

My dad hated talking on the phone. He grew up before people really even had landlines and just never really liked phones. After we got home, he called me every single day. I knew something was up, because this is the man who would cuss out his cell phone until it stopped ringing. He wouldn’t elaborate, he would just admit the house was getting weird.

My husband was finally granted a few extra days leave after New Years, and we went to get my dad. The 2 nights we spent in that house are something I’ll never forget.

I honestly think whatever was in that house was pissed we were all moving out for good. Things would move on us, or be in a different box than we had packed it in. We were hearing strange knocks on the walls and faint voices in rooms nobody was in.

We only slept there 2 nights. The first night, my husband and I were trying to go to sleep and we started hearing stomping upstairs. The attic was huge and had previously been my room as a teenager, it has hardwood floors and had wooden enclosed steps. We both realized we never heard my dad go upstairs and were trying to figure out why he’d be up there in the middle of the night when we had decided to get his stuff up there in the daylight the next day. I got up and went out to the living room and he was sitting on the couch. He asked me if the stomping had woken us up too? My husband joined us in the living room, and we all sat and talked for the next few hours.

In that time, my dad finally told me the footsteps had become a nightly thing. It sounded like something frantically pacing back and forth where my bed used to be up there. It started the night he had started packing boxes and had spoken to me on the phone about the date we were coming to get him. He had started seeing the shadows darting in and out the back door again, too. This is something we hadn’t seen in at least 15 years. The doorknobs started jiggling again. My dad and I were both night owls, and we would sit up late telling ghost stories and just talking and this would happen often. We’d just be talking away, and all of a sudden the doorknob would start jiggling. We would hear, and see it happen. At first, my dad would grab the machete he kept under the couch and a flashlight and walk around the outside of the house and never find anything. After a while, we just ignored it.

After a while, we went back to bed and laid there just listening to the frantic pacing until we passed out. It happened the next night too. It was so surreal. I still ask my husband if it really happened and he always kinda chuckles and reminds me that we barely slept and were so exhausted when we got to our new house that we were all in zombie mode unloading the truck.

My dad passed away 6 months later. He was so glad to be out of that damned house. I was just happy he didn’t die alone there. My husband and I recently moved back to the city I grew up in. Right after we got back, he insisted we drive by that house. I had the worst feeling of dread over seeing that house again. The new owners changed a lot about the yard and exterior. I would love to know if they’ve had experiences like we did, but there’s nothing anyone could say to get me back in that house to ask them!

25.This is not my first hand experience but it happened to my mom when she was 10 years old.

It happened in 1980’s India, in which, The bathrooms weren’t attached to the bedroom or the house, But you’d have to walk into your backyard where the bathrooms are constructed as a separate building instead of an attached bathroom. So, one chilly December night, mom went to take a leak in the bathroom, but since it was dark and she was scared to go walk till the end of the big backyard she asked her mother to accompany her till the bathroom. My mom went inside, finished her business and came out of the bathroom. Suddenly, she sees a Lady standing right next to her mother and was surprised that until now there was no one except her mother and this lady showed up. She assumed that the lady might be one of the farmers her father employed to work on his farm and she might have needed some money. Mom then asks the lady “hey, who are you? What are you doing here this late in the night? Dad’s not here, he’s out running some errands, please come back tomorrow.”

Grandma turned pale. My grandmother couldn’t see anyone standing beside her and my mom was clearly pointing right next to her. Grandma didn’t take any chances, she grabbed her daughter and rushed inside the house and asked her daughter who has she seen and what did she look like, Mom described the lady as a stout and tall woman wearing a red saree (typical Indian dress) and had a grey color necklace. Grandma herself was scared because she once saw the same lady few years back in the backyard but never told anyone about it. Grandma started chanting holy mantras in Hinduism and waited until grandpa arrived.

When grandpa heard the whole ordeal narrated by grandma, He gave a nod like he knew what or who it was based on the description given. he calmly went and grabbed a family album and showed it to grandma and mom and sure as hell that lady was my mom’s grandmother and she died way before grandma and grandpa got married. He said he himself saw her few times in the backyard and re assured mom and grandma that nothing is going to harm them. He said that his mother loved sitting in the same backyard during chilly winter nights and that she loved this house to death.

The word has it that, in the ancestral home, her spirit still wanders during winters and the neighbors insist that they saw her several times in the backyard just sitting and staring at the sky .

26.A few years ago, I was at home with my family. My house was fairly small so noise travelled well throughout the structure. I cant remember the exact time but if my memory serves me correct, it was around 10pm. The sound system in my brothers room went full volume without anyone even being in the room. The music was at its loudest and obviously startled the whole family, before we ran into the room and switched it off.

This is where it gets strange. The same night after the sound system almost blew the speakers on its own. We later heard the water running in the kitchen sink. We went to investigate and one of the taps was on full flow. Again, it was very strange as one would physically have to turn the tap to open the valve. As cliche as this may sound, it was very cold when I went into the kitchen to investigate the kitchen event. The fact of the matter is that both of these events happened in the same night and definitely spoked the family a little.

27.A lot of abandoned roads where I grew up, it was a small town where a lot of people started building before the economy went to shit in 2007 thus leaving a bunch of abandoned half constructed houses and empty half built roads leading to dead ends. It was the perfect place to drive to when I first got my license to go smoke some weed with buddies. We were in my car hanging out in an abandoned road when my car shut off, turning the lights off completely. We were in pitch darkness. I held my breath and hoped the car hadn’t died on me and turned the key, the car started right up and flashed the lights on to the dead end ahead. A man in dressed in a very old school suit and top hat was standing there with a briefcase. We were in the middle of no where, no houses or anything for miles. It was 6 of us stuffed in this car. We all saw him. We all screamed, I never put a car in reverse so fast. By the time I adjusted myself to back out he was gone.

28.My friend and I went out star gazing one night, it was a clear night and the moon was full and really bright. We were looking towards the moon and then right beside the moon these three lights appeared out of nowhere, forming an upside down triangle. They were just as bright or slightly brighter than the moon. The top two lights faded off fairly quickly and the bottom light faded shortly after while moving up in a squiggly line. This whole sighting lasted about 15 seconds.

If my friend wasn’t there I would be questioning what the heck that was (still am of course), but seeing as he was there we both know what the fuck we saw. Unreal…

29.My friend was in the hospital for a surgery for her legs, and I went up there with a few friends to visit her, keep her company.

While all of us were in there, her mom, and our two other friends, just sitting around talking, this rocking chair just starts moving. It’s right by my friend in the hospital bed, just rocking as steadily as can be.

I was freaked the fuck out. I stopped it, put my hand on it, and it started again. It wasn’t rocking hard, just slowly like someone was sitting in it. I checked all around it and there were no strings, there was no draft, no one was touching it even the slightest. There was no possible explanation for it to be moving.

My friend’s mom thought it was her father coming to see her daughter in the hospital. She was not freaked out in the slightest, didn’t even question it.

I still think about it all the time.

30.When I was a kid I went on a family trip to see the beaches where the allies landed at as me and my dad were both interested. We visited a bunker but before we went in I told my dad we couldn’t go in yet as their was someone already in there speaking. My dad ignored me and we walk in to find it completely empty, a few years later he found a video that stated people would often hear German soldiers in the same bunker.

31.Lived in a smaller apartment complex for a while and the place had some weird vibes but nothing big. Then I started to get bothered at night while trying to sleep in my bedroom. I would get the strange sensation that something was right behind me. You know the feeling where your hair stands up and you get kind of fuzzy? That would happen every night. So for about 2 months I slept on my couch because I would consistently have that feeling.

Then I begin to date this girl. We go out drinking one night and I bring her back to my place. We walk in and I flip on the light and she freezes. I see a panicked look in her eyes. She is almost in tears and looking in the corner of the room she says “There’s a demon right there.” I was stunned. I didn’t tell anyone about the feelings or me sleeping on the couch before then. We immediately left and went to her place. She and a friend later that week did some sort of Indian cleansing thingy in my apartment and I never had another bad feeling since.

Usually not a superstitious guy but that whole encounter definitely sticks with me.

32.I just recalled a memory from when I was younger, that I haven’t thought about in a very long time.

I was at a friend’s house, sitting in his garden around a table that the family had on their porch.

I was facing towards the house, whilst my friend and his father were faced towards me and away from it.

In an occurrence which couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, a jet black silhouette in a person shape appeared on the house wall standing with their arms out and legs shoulder-width apart.

It appeared to side-step across the wall before disappearing and I was the only witness. Noone else was stood nearby to cast a shadow.

33. When I was a child I was playing at a local playground. I jumped off the swing and landed in the woodchips. There was one woodchip floating like 30cm above the ground. I even put my hand under the chip and it stayed in the air. I wanted to show it to my friends but when we got back it was gone.

Pete Davidson has broken his silence about breaking up with Ariana Grande — and judging by his behavior at a comedy set this weekend in El Lay, it appears he’s even more or less ready to joke about it.

The SNL star made an appearance co-hosting a comedy show called Judd & Pete For America with another funnyman — Judd Apatow — and in doing so, Davidson got real about his failed relationship and near-marriage to Ariana.

He continued on, too, adding more jokes about the breakup in his bit to the crowd in WeHo this weekend (below):

“Um, I’ve been covering a bunch of tattoos, that’s fun. I’m f**king 0 for 2 in the tattoo [department]. Yeah, I’m afraid to get my mom tattooed on me, that’s how bad it is … Obviously you know, we [Ariana and I] broke up or whatever but when me and her first got engaged we got tattoos, and it was in a magazine like, ‘Was Pete Davidson stupid?’ And 93% of it said ‘yes.’ So my boy, he was like, ‘Don’t listen to that sh*t man. They’re literally f**king haters.’ And I’m like, yeah, f**k that. I’m not stupid. Well the other day we were in my kitchen and he was like, ‘Yo bro. Turns out you were stupid.’”

Ouch!! Funny… but OUCH!!!! At least Pete can laugh about it already?!

He quipped with more dark humor about the breakup later, too (below):

“I feel like I am America. I’m a good guy that just keeps getting kicked in the dick. You’re like, ‘Ah, that f–king poor kid. Hope he doesn’t kill himself.’ That’s America.”

Facebook is making a video camera. The company wants you to take it home, gaze into its single roving-yet-unblinking eye and speak private thoughts to your loved ones into its many-eared panel.

The thing is called Portal and it wants to live on your kitchen counter or in your living room or wherever else you’d like friends and family to remotely hang out with you. Portal adjusts to keep its subject in frame as they move around to enable casual at-home video chat. The device minimizes background noise to boost voice clarity. These tricks are neat but not revelatory.

Sounds useful, though. Everyone you know is on Facebook. Or they were anyway… things are a bit different now.

Facebook, champion of bad timing

As many users are looking for ways to compartmentalize or scale back their reliance on Facebook, the company has invited itself into the home. Portal is voice activated, listening for a cue-phrase (in this case “Hey Portal) and leverages Amazon’s Alexa voice commands, as well. The problem is that plenty of users are already creeped out enough by Alexa’s always-listening functionality and habit of picking up snippets of conversation from the next room over. It may have the best social graph in the world, but in 2018 people are looking to use Facebook for less — not more.

Facebook reportedly planned to unveil Portal at F8 this year but held the product back due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, among other scandals. The fact that the company released the device on the tail end of a major data breach disclosure suggests that the company couldn’t really hold back the product longer without killing it altogether and didn’t see a break in the clouds coming any time soon. Facebook’s Portal is another way for Facebook to blaze a path that its users walk daily to connect to one another. Months after its original intended ship date, the timing still couldn’t be worse.

Over the last eight years Facebook insisted time and time again that it is not and never would be a hardware company. I remember sitting in the second row at a mysterious Menlo Park press event five years ago as reporters muttered that we might at last meet the mythological Facebook phone. Instead, Mark Zuckerberg introduced Graph Search.

It’s hard to overstate just how much better the market timing would have been back in 2013. For privacy advocates, the platform was already on notice, but most users still bobbed in and out of Facebook regularly without much thought. Friends who’d quit Facebook cold turkey were still anomalous. Soul-searching over social media’s inexorable impact on social behavior wasn’t quite casual conversation except among disillusioned tech reporters.

Trusting Facebook (or not)

Onion headline-worthy news timing aside, Facebook showed a glimmer of self-awareness, promising that Portal was “built with privacy and security in mind.” It makes a few more promises:

“Facebook doesn’t listen to, view, or keep the contents of your Portal video calls. Your Portal conversations stay between you and the people you’re calling. In addition, video calls on Portal are encrypted, so your calls are always secure.”

“For added security, Smart Camera and Smart Sound use AI technology that runs locally on Portal, not on Facebook servers. Portal’s camera doesn’t use facial recognition and doesn’t identify who you are.”

“Like other voice-enabled devices, Portal only sends voice commands to Facebook servers after you say, ‘Hey Portal.’ You can delete your Portal’s voice history in your Facebook Activity Log at any time.”

This stuff sounds okay, but it’s standard. And, like any Facebook product testing the waters before turning the ad hose on full-blast, it’s all subject to change. For example, Portal’s camera doesn’t identify who you are, but Facebook commands a powerful facial recognition engine and is known for blurring the boundaries between its major products, a habit that’s likely to worsen with some of the gatekeepers out of the way.

Facebook does not command a standard level of trust. To recover from recent lows, Facebook needs to establish an extraordinary level of trust with users. A fantastic level of trust. Instead, it’s charting new inroads into their lives.

Hardware is hard. Facebook isn’t a hardware maker and its handling of Oculus is the company’s only real trial with the challenges of making, marketing — and securing — something that isn’t a social app. In 2012, Zuckerberg declared that hardware has “always been the wrong strategy” for Facebook. Two years later, Facebook bought Oculus, but that was a bid to own the platform of the future after missing the boat on the early mobile boom — not a signal that Facebook wanted to be a hardware company.

Reminder: Facebook’s entire raison d’être is to extract personal data from its users. For intimate products — video chat, messaging, kitchen-friendly panopticons — it’s best to rely on companies with a business model that is not diametrically opposed to user privacy. Facebook isn’t the only one of those companies (um, hey Google) but Facebook’s products aren’t singular enough to be worth fooling yourself into a surfeit of trust.

Gut check

Right now, as consumers, we only have so much leverage. A small handful of giant tech companies — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft — make products that are ostensibly useful, and we decide how useful they are and how much privacy we’re willing to trade to get them. That’s the deal and the deal sucks.

As a consumer it’s worth really sitting with that. Which companies do you trust the least? Why?

It stands to reason that if Facebook cannot reliably secure its flagship product — Facebook itself — then the company should not be trusted with experimental forays into wildly different products, i.e. physical ones. Securing a software platform that serves 2.23 billion users is an extremely challenging task, and adding hardware to that equation just complicates existing concerns.

You don’t have to know the technical ins and outs of security to make secure choices. Trust is leverage — demand that it be earned. If a product doesn’t pass the smell test, trust that feeling. Throw it out. Better yet, don’t invite it onto your kitchen counter to begin with.

If we can’t trust Facebook to safely help us log in to websites or share news stories, why should we trust Facebook to move into our homes an always-on counter-mounted speaker capable of collecting incredibly sensitive data? Tl; dr: We shouldn’t! Of course we shouldn’t. But you knew that.

“Gathering around the grill is the perfect way to bring the family together,” said Jeff Thiessen, President of Pit Boss Grills. “Whether you’re making burgers or preparing your Thanksgiving meal on the grill, you’re making memories together, preparing something that can be shared and that’s special.”

Life as a parent can be hectic, but mother of four Kayela Larson has found a creative outlet for the chaos. Larson creates charming illustrations that depict life as a mother and all the humorous craziness that comes with it.

The artist’s love of art and animation was born from classic Disney movies like the Little Mermaid and The Lion King and continued to be a passion throughout her life. After college, she started a family and had kids and time for art slowly crept away. Larson said that the flame reignited one night at the kitchen table after a particularly rough day, “I decided I needed to engage myself in something that made me feel the most like me,” she wrote.

A passion that was once calming and cathartic felt awkward and foreign to her, “Staring at my ugly attempt of a portrait, I decided that “artist” was one part of my identity that I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. I guess that was the wake-up call I needed because I immediately got to work.”

As is evident in her work Larson regained her confidence and fine-tuned her style. She now uses life to fuel her art with hilarious comics. Scroll down below to check out her work!